In February of 2009, I ran across a posting in the barcampOttawaGov list, “VisibleGovernment.ca @ Fresco’s on Elgin“.  After some email exchange with Laura Wesley, I attended and got to see a very interesting presentation by Jennifer Bell of VisibleGovernment.ca about the Benefits of Open Government Data.

In early March, I received a message from Laura about a very interesting idea, and along with Morgen we started a  series of meetings and discussions around the idea of StimulusWatch.ca  There are many more players than just us, but we have been doing some of the core work around getting the site up, with great support from the hosting service, Lexicom.

It has been my best experience so far of a technology-enabled collaboration, whether it’s emails back and forth each day, using Google Docs, meeting in person for brunch, working for hours at coffee houses, or using multiple laptops and a projector in Laura’s home office.

I’m excited about the prospect of using modern technology and citizen engagement to help us track the stimulus spending.

We’re still working on our full launch (the temporary wiki will soon be replaced by a real site), but we thought you might like some background on how we all came together.

Side note 1: We surveyed the tag space, and it looks like stimcan is the best one to attach to this project.  Please feel free to use it (or on Twitter, #stimcan) when discussing the project.

Side note 2: Other than being inspired by them, we are not officially associated with the US StimulusWatch.org in any way.

There’s lots more to come…